Through A Father's Eyes
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Alfred and Henk discuss the consequences of Alfred's Pied Piper stunt with the magic violin. "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm disappointed in you."


Through A Father's Eyes

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Alfred J. Kwak

Copyright: Hermann van Veen

"I never thought I'd say this, Alfred, but I'm disappointed in you."

Henk's grave voice barely cut through the humming engines of Professor Paljas' rocket-windmill. Strapped into their hammocks, the ship on autopilot, en route back to Earth after returning Pierrot's violin, Alfred had been waiting to finally catch up on some desperately needed sleep. His foster-father's words, however, jolted him awake in a white heat of hurt and indidgnation.

"_Why,_ Pa?"

The mole sighed heavily. "I'm not saying this to upset you. Heaven knows you worked a miracle when you cured that virus. Playing five hours straight, great molehills, I still can't believe it! Only … "

"Only what?"

"Those children," said his father, in a soft voice more devastating than any shout. "All those children you took from their parents. Alfred, son, what in the name of sanity were you thinking?"

Alfred stared up at the gray arched ceiling of the mill. His stomach lurched in a way that had nothing to do with the ship's motion. He didn't know what he'd been thinking either; all he could remember was feeling a deeper, colder rage than he'd ever felt before. And if he wasn't careful, that feeling might come back.

"Geez, Pa, they were _fine_! Happy, even. You don't think I'd have let them get hurt?"

"Not on purpose, of course. But one false note on that instrument - "

A cold chill shot down Alfred's spine. He hadn't even considered that. There had been no railings on the glowing spheres he'd conjured up. If one of them, with a wingless child on board, had wobbled just a little … it did not bear thinking of. And it would have been his fault.

"Nothing happened, though, so why mention it!"

"That's not my point!"

It was Henk's turn to raise his voice. If they had been home at the clog cottage, he would have banged his paw on the table and made the teapot shake; as it was, the hammock below Alfred's creaked dangerously as it swung back and forth.

"Do you have any idea how a father or mother feels when their child goes missing? Do you know how many times I've sat by the phone during those daredevil expeditions of yours with Paljas, never knowing when or even _if_ you were coming back? And to punish one weak king and twelve corrupt councillors, you did this to a whole nation's worth of parents?"

It was that echo of a father's fears that got to Alfred. It reminded him vividly of his first birthday, being falsely arrested for Pikkie's theft and, for the first time, locked in a cell. Seeing Henk on the opposite side of the bars, all the steadiness of his nature abandoned in his worry for his foster-son, had been a shattering experience. Alfred would never forget it.

He thought of the parents welcoming back their children, the happy hugs, the shouts of welcome, and in the middle of it all, an image he couldn't seem to shake. A male crocodile, of all creatures, catching a tiny female in a blue and white striped dress. Holding her tight in his scaly arms, with his eyes closed, in a bubble of perfect silence among the noisy crowd. No mate, no mother, to be seen.

"You're right, Pa." He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. "I … " Useless to say _I'm sorry. _Henk wasn't the one whose peace he had destroyed the night before. "I shouldn't have."

"No," Henk agreed. "You shouldn't."

Alfred turned over restlessly in his hammock, finding no place cool enough to lay his hot face. "You try coming up with creative solutions on two hours' sleep in a palace dungeon," he muttered. "Of course that's no excuse, but I was just so _angry. _I'm sick of all these greedy, power-hungry idiots who think they're entitled to run a country, and I'm sick of getting pushed around and laughed at when I'm only trying to help – and most of all, I'm bloody sick of prison!"

He punched his pillow, savagely disappointed that it wasn't the foolish green face of the rhinoceros king. A moment later, oddly enough, he felt better. Lying motionlessly on his cot, haunting himself with Pierrot's violin, imagining the helpless fury of the king and councillors in detail, had brought him halfway out of his mind with suppressed rage. Raising his voice at last came as a blessed relief.

"You know," he added grimly, "Times like this, I can almost understand Dolf."

Some of his thoughts in the rhino's dungeons frightened even him. Thoughts of what he would do if he were king, how he would humiliate creatures like those councillors for their arrogance and greed. He understood Dolf's smoldering sense of wrong, his stubborn drive to shape the world in his own image and erase from it everything he hated. It was only that they hated different things; but were they really so different in the end?

"No," said Henk firmly. "No, I don't believe that, and neither should you. The very fact that you worry about becoming like Dolf means you never have to. You're still your parents' son, and still the chick I raised. I'd come up there and hug you if it weren't for this darned zero gravity," he added with a chuckle, breaking up the tension at long last.

"Yeah, no. We don't want to go floating away again, do we, Pa?"

"Definitely not. We moles were never meant to go up in space, and now I know that for certain."

Alfred smiled a little at this joke, the first hint of amusement he'd had in what felt like centuries. He still wasn't sure of Henk's assessment of the situation; surely Dolf himself, as a child, must have been afraid of becoming like his own abusive father, and the fear hadn't stopped him. But just knowing that Henk wasn't ashamed of him, would not give up on him –_ still the chick I raised_ – was enough to make him feel better.

No conversation like this must ever happen again, he promised himself. Never again would he take any further steps down that dangerous road.

"Pa?"

"Yes, my boy?"

"When we get back, can we please not listen to any violin music for a while?"

"Not even for Winnie?"

"Not even then. I've played enough to last a lifetime."


End file.
